Tonight
by borderfame-sabrestar
Summary: An account of one of many nights Fred spent without Hermione during the war, and he's trying his best to fall out of love. Based on the poem 'Tonight I Can Write' by Pablo Neruda.


Based on the poem 'Tonight I Can Write' by Pablo Neruda

* * *

><p><strong>Tonight<strong>

_Fred/Hermione_

_Tonight I can write the saddest lines._

He hated waiting for sleep. Laying in bed, his thoughts uneasy, his soul unwilling to let him be at rest because deep down, he knew he couldn't sleep without knowing if she was safe. His thoughts were a maze, and around every turn was a memory of her. He would only close his eyes when he was completely devoid of energy, when his eyes finally slid shut like heavy doors over his pupils… and it only felt like a second later that he would be woken again, and he would still be lying in bed.

_Write, for example, 'The night is starry  
>and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'<em>

His eyes slipped open, and he stared at the ceiling. The noise that had woken him was his aunt Muriel, yelling at the stray cat outside of her house. George rolled over in his bed, crushing his head into his pillow to mute the sound.

"The way she hollers," said George in an unimpressed grumble, talking almost incoherently through his pillow, "You wonder why the Death Eaters haven't figured out that we're here yet. They must have heard her screaming by now."

Fred, too tired to respond, merely made a small mumbling sound of agreement, before he sighed and swung his legs over the side of the small bed with a stupidly thin mattress, and he rested his head in his hands. He glanced out of the window, and he said with a groan, voice raspy and sore, "Merlin, the sun isn't even up yet."

_The night wind revolves in the sky and sings._

George yawned grotesquely. "Of course it's not. It's not even midnight." When Fred blinked at him in a surprised manner, George simply said, "Go back to sleep, Freddie."

Fred sighed again, and he let his hair hang over his eyes as he stared at his feet on the wooden floorboards. He couldn't sleep. Not while she was still out there. He glanced up, wanting to vent to his brother, but George had already begun to fall back into slumber. Fred didn't want to disturb him again.

So he got up, and walked quietly from the room. He didn't know where he was going. He just wanted to get outside for a bit. Like having a smoke to relieve the stress, but he didn't smoke. He just needed to breathe. Breathe, and pretend that everything was okay, that she would be coming home tomorrow, that he could see her one more time.

_Tonight I can write the saddest lines.  
>I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.<em>

As he stepped out of the back door of the old red-brick house their aunt lived in, Fred wondered whether bringing a jumper would have been a good idea. But he didn't feel awfully cold. It was only October, so it wasn't too cold just yet.

He sighed. Only October. She'd hardly been gone a month. He wanted her back, he wanted it to be the eve of Bill and Fleur's wedding, when he slipped inside her sheets and held her close because he knew that she would be leaving soon, and he buried his face in her hair and tried desperately to remember the way she smelled, he remembered the way his hands held her so as to imprint the shape of her curves inside his mind.

He cried the night after she left. He'd never cried so hard. He'd never felt so alone, even with George there with him. This was a different sort of loneliness._  
><em>  
><em>Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.<br>I kissed her again and again under the endless sky._

Fred cursed himself, not for the first time, and wished he had truly told her how he felt. He'd always keep quiet, never revealing his true emotions because he knew she was unsure. But she knew that it wasn't just a friendship. She knew that because they would kiss, and she would whisper that she didn't know what she was doing, that she didn't know why she was doing it. She'd say that they should stop but then she'd kiss him again, and they would only part when somebody else came along, when Molly or Arthur called out that dinner was ready, or when they heard Ron's stomping footsteps coming up the stairs.

Fred smiled as he remembered one time, when he had accosted her in the bathroom and kissed her as she was doing her hair, when Ron knocked on the door to tell Hermione that her Hogwarts letter had arrived, and Fred had snatched the brush from Hermione's hand and begun to brush her hair. When Ron opened the door, and asked his brother what he was doing, Fred replied in a jovial tone, "I am brushing her hair, dear brother. What does it look like I'm doing?"

_She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.  
>How could one not have loved her great still eyes?<em>

Ron might not have been the smartest boy in the Weasley clan, but he pointed to her frizzy hair and said, "You're not doing a very good job, Fred," before chuckling and leaving to walk back downstairs. As soon as he was out of earshot, they both collapsed to the floor in fits of laughter.

And she had looked up at him with warm amber eyes, sparking with laughter and he kissed her again. It was one of his favourite memories, remembering the way she tasted in the morning after she had brushed her teeth, and the way she smelled after she had put that vanilla-scented conditioner in her hair.

And Ron was right. Her hair looked bloody awful that morning.

_Tonight I can write the saddest lines.  
>To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.<em>

He sighed, and he folded his arms across his chest, inhaling deeply as he stared up at the stars. He wondered if she was looking at the stars. He wished he could send her a message, but it was too dangerous to attempt to send an owl, or even to go out looking for her. It was even too dangerous to send a patronus, if he could even conjure one at all.

Curious, Fred took out his wand, feeling the ridges in the dark wood beneath his fingertips before he pictured her lovely eyes and the smile creeping onto her lips whenever he made a bad joke. He remembered the way her voice sounded when she was telling him off. He remembered the dress she wore to the Yule Ball, clear as the night he saw her there.

And he whispered, "_Expecto patronum_!"

A silver mist erupted from the tip of his wand and it danced in the air before him for a moment, before it formed into the shape of a silvery fox. It turned to stare at him, as if to say, 'What next? Why am I here?' Fred couldn't send him anywhere, so he let his wand drop to his side and the silver fox dissolved into the night.

_To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.  
>And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.<em>

Fred felt a soft breath of wind on his skin, like a sigh, and he shivered. It was cold. He wanted to just fall back into her arms and feel warm and safe. It had been so long since safety had been familiar. It was like a distant memory now. Fred was glad he had George. If he'd had to live with Muriel by himself, he'd surely have murdered her by now.

Fred tapped his wand against his fingers, before he shoved it back into his pocket. He was going to go for a walk.

_What does it matter that my love could not keep her.  
>The night is starry and she is not with me.<em>

The last time they had been apart for so long was the start of last year's summer holidays. Hermione had spent the better part of it at her home, with her parents. Fred had been tempted to go visit her but she was determined he wasn't to do anything of the sort. He hadn't realised that she had been struggling with having to wipe her parent's memories, and he thought she was just being a stupid girl, because girls are frustrating.

_This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.  
>My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.<em>

It was only after Fred had told her she was a silly girl that she had broken down crying and sobbed into his shoulder for hours, and he'd gently held her, not bothering to ask her what was wrong until she had finally stopped crying long enough to speak. When she told him what she had done, it had taken all of his strength to tell her she had done the right thing. It seemed like such an awful thing to do, but he knew Hermione well enough to know she would have put a lot of thought into it, more than any other person would have.

He knew she had done the right thing, because she was Hermione. Nothing she could do was wrong, even if Fred didn't like that she was too scared to admit that she was in love with him. She wouldn't say so, because she knew that they were going to go their separate ways and she was determined not to hurt his feelings. Or maybe not to hurt her own. Fred wasn't sure, but he was sure that this feeling of isolation, of separation was not as painful as knowing she would rather be without him.

_My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.  
>My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.<em>

Fred stared up at the clear night sky and trundled around the large clearing behind Muriel's house. This would be an excellent Quidditch field, he thought to himself. He remembered once when they had been playing backyard Quidditch and he'd fallen from his broom – he'd never seen her move so quickly. She had run over to him from where she had been sitting against a tree with a book, and he realised then that she had been watching them the whole time.

His heart skipped a beat. No, he knew she had been watching _him._ There was something special about that day – it was the first day Fred clearly remembered that she noticed him. The first time he recognised her interest, and the first time it had registered in his mind that she cared for him.

_The same night whitening the same trees.  
>We, of that time, are no longer the same.<em>

The first time he had kissed her, she thought it was a prank. He had snuck up on her when she was in the library at school, when there was nobody else there. She had scolded him, but done so with a sparkle in her eye. Hermione had said, "Will you always persist in being so annoying?"

And he had replied, "Yes," and placed his hand on her cheek, and swiftly pressed his lips to hers. He had felt her go rigid, as though she had frozen – but she didn't immediately push him away. It was only when her brain registered what was happening, when the fog of emotion had cleared, that she had pushed him away and hissed at him, "What are you doing?"

Fred's heart, which had been hammering so hard he was sure it was about to leap out of the cavity of his chest, had replied in a shaky voice, "I wanted to kiss you."

"Is this some sort of joke?"

Fred had replied, with as much determination and seriousness as he could muster, "No."

And he knew she believed him, because she kissed him back.

_I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.  
>Love is so short, forgetting is so long.<em>

Fred ran his hands through his silky red hair as he walked, and then he realised he had reached the edge of the field. He placed his hands against the wooden picket fence at the edge, and leaned against it as he stared out across the vast plains and shadowed green fields stretching out to the horizon.

His hands gripped the fence and his knuckles turned white as he tried to stop himself from crying, but the familiar hot stinging behind his eyes pushed the hot tears out, brimming and blurring before rolling down his cheeks and off the edge of his pointed nose. He hated this feeling. He had promised her he would let her go, even if it was just for a short while, because if something – anything – happened to either of them, the pain of losing her would be much worse than pretending he wasn't in love.

But he was in love, and he had already lost her._  
><em>  
><em>Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms<br>my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her._

Fred felt rather than heard George approaching, and he didn't bother to hide his tears as his brother approached. He heard him say quietly, in a tired voice, "One of those nights, Fred?"

Fred nodded. "One of those nights, George." All nights, he thought, but didn't say it.

He didn't have to. George knew that he was suffering, over and over again, his mind plagued with memories of Hermione. Fred didn't have to explain how he felt because George understood him better than anyone, and even if George wasn't as confused or hurt as Fred, he understood.

Fred felt his brothers hand grip his shoulder, and give a reassuring squeeze. Fred placed his hand over George's, and let his brother lead him back to the house, to at least pretend that they had a good night's sleep when the sun came up.

And every night, Fred told himself he wouldn't feel the same the next day. He wouldn't be so sad tomorrow. But every night was the same, and every night he would be better tomorrow.

It was never going to end.

_Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer  
>and these the last verses that I write for her.<em>


End file.
